Often neglected by web masters, image optimization is a key to website optimization. It has assumed greater significance after weight-age given to core web vitals by Google. Images play a major role in enhancing user experience which is vital for success online.
Though less complex and time consuming than the rest of optimization exercise it plays a major role in garnering traffic from SERPs. Visual search is growing by leaps and bound people search using photographs as lead in the image search section of the browsers.
Billions of searches take place using them and the importance has increased with the proliferation of eCommerce sites in the cyber space. Optimizing photos on your website will enhance user experience, reduce poor performance as far as web vitals are concerned besides increasing conversion through enhanced engagement and higher ranking.
Website owners and some web developers add pictures as if to fulfill a formality. On the contrary this is a serious aspect of web development. Relevant images accord a greater meaning to the content and attract buyers in eCommerce sites. Attention should be paid in sincerity to visual attributes of a web page and photos besides video are essential for a complete page experience.
Availing good pictures is a difficult task and often relevant free ones available on Internet are not up to the mark. Hence a professional approach should be in place to acquire the valuable visual attributes. Buying them from stock photo sites is the best option for general images while a photographic stint using services of a professional lens men for topic specific images should be carried out.
Compression
After acquisition images should be compressed without using quality. Google Squoosh , Tinyjpeg and Adobe Photoshop have proved to be worth their salt as far as compression is concerned. The light images in latest formats enable swift downloads on browsers and this is gauged by search engines as good for user experience and hence good for higher ranking. Adjustment should be made without compromising quality or resolution and Squoosh offers a preview that helps in minimizing the image to right size.
Once compressed pictures added to a page should be defined by their height and width, Whence dimensions are mentioned the photos load separately from contents mitigate bad experience if they load slowly.
URL Naming
A responsive URL structure performs very well on SERPs and keyword driven approach should be followed whence naming an image. The name should explain what the image stands for clearly to the users and the search engines.
Alt Text
Adding Relevant alt text is very important and helps the search engines to understand content which is essential for indexing and ranking. This should used for keyword spamming rather used as description which also acts as screen reading tools for the visually impaired. Alt text should be contextual and exactly describe the image. They are automatically embedded in the HTML of the web page and are easy to add using a suitable editor. Never use long sentences are use natural phrases to describe whenever possible. Remember search engines calculate the incidence of a keyword on a web page and too many added artificially would be spamming.
More on image optimization
Storing images in directory structure. Best is to create silos or specific directory to store images this will help create a topic specific identity which will help search engines as well.
Create an image sitemap and add it to the web pages.
Create structure data for images in a web page.
These techniques are of immense help in case of large portals especially eCommerce sites.
Save images in next gen formats for better performance. There are many formats available for saving images but most suitable is JPEG. Newer versions of JEPG format are available as JEPG 2000 and JEPG XR. The next gen formats support multiple color formats as support for HDR Imagery which stands for high dynamic range imaging.
Finally test download speed on tools mentioned below
1) https://www.webpagetest.org/
2) Google Lighthouse
3)https://www.dareboost.com/en
For Visual Search Use Google Lens
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Uday provides search engine optimization service for digital marketing. He provides website contents and content for authoritative links.
He also teaches digital marketing in his home town Jabalpur. He can be contacted at:
pateluday90@hotmail.com
09755089323
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